photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Area residents participate in a candlelight vigil Monday, Nov. 21, 2022, in South Park, in honor of the five people who were slain Saturday by a gunman at an LGBTQ club in Colorado Springs.

A number of area residents paid tribute Monday evening to the five lives that were lost in the Saturday night shooting at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs.

At a candlelight vigil in South Park, organized by Amy Meigs, residents shared their grief over the violence at Club Q, which also injured dozens of people in addition to those who were slain by a gunman with an AR-15 style rifle. The 22-year-old suspect is being held on murder and hate crime charges.

The dead, whose names were read at the gathering, are Daniel Aston, Raymond Green Vance, Kelly Loving, Ashley Paugh and Derrick Rump.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Area residents participate in a candlelight vigil Monday, Nov. 21, 2022, in South Park, in honor of the five people who were slain Saturday by a gunman at an LGBTQ club in Colorado Springs.

Those who spoke at the vigil noted that the deadly shooting occurred the day before the Transgender Day of Remembrance, which was Sunday, and they decried the carnage as a hate crime that has increasingly been enabled by hostile political discourse in the United States that glorifies guns and vilifies LGBTQ people.

“Politicians are vilifying our entire community,” Rachel Marie Reed, of Lawrence, told the gathering. “We have to fight back with words. We’re the first line of defense,” Reed added, emphasizing that an attack on LGBTQ people in any community is an attack on all.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Area residents participate in a candlelight vigil Monday, Nov. 21, 2022, in South Park, in honor of the five people who were slain Saturday by a gunman at an LGBTQ club in Colorado Springs.

Lawrence resident Kevin Elliott urged folks at the vigil to use their anger for love and to speak out against the wrongs and slander that continue to be heaped on the LGBTQ community — often with the complicity of powerful politicians and so-called community leaders, and sometimes in the name of religion.

“Bigotry is not a point of view,” Elliott said. “It is violence.”

A recent publication from the Bureau of Justice Statistics found that LGBTQ people are at heightened risk of violent victimization compared with their straight and cisgender counterparts. It found that the rate of violent victimization of transgender people is 2.5 times higher than the rate among cisgender people. Lesbian and gay people also experienced more than twice the victimization rate of straight people, and bisexual people experienced victimization at almost seven times the rate of straight people.

With a candle cradled in both hands, Santiago Vasquez, of Lawrence, acknowledged the appalling sadness of the needless deaths in Colorado Springs, but told the crowd that the “power of the gun” could never kill “the joy of who we are.”

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Area residents participate in a candlelight vigil Monday, Nov. 21, 2022, in South Park, in honor of the five people who were slain Saturday by a gunman at an LGBTQ club in Colorado Springs.